


Going Home

by politic_bookworms



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Conversations, Crying, Fluff and Angst, I love my idiot sons, Idiots in Love, M/M, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Slight Canon Divergence, just a little, post-Armageddon that wasn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2019-06-20
Packaged: 2020-04-07 10:39:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19083349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/politic_bookworms/pseuds/politic_bookworms
Summary: While waiting for the bus after Armageddon doesn't happen, Aziraphale wants to get something straight (or not) about who Crowley's best friend is.Aka: these idiots are both operating at Peak Dumbass all the time and we love them for it





	Going Home

**Author's Note:**

> I stayed up until 3am writing this immediately after finishing the last episode, because I could not stop thinking about how this whole thing went down.  
> A million thanks to the amazing Kris for beta-ing this and for encouraging me! This is the first thing I've ever posted to Ao3 but I had to because I love these characters so much.

The delivery man’s van started with a cough and then puttered away down the road, the noise of its engine swallowed up by the quiet of the night. Under the dark sky, the Tadfield trees rustled softly, perhaps aware that something had changed. There would be no more perfect weather here, no more snows each Christmas. Now, anything might happen.

Below the trees, on the worn wooden bench, the angel and the demon watched the delivery van disappear into the night.

“What do you suppose he meant by that, about the day he’s had?” Aziraphale wondered aloud. “What could possibly be more unlikely than the day we’ve all had?”

Crowley took another sip from the bottle they were passing back and forth. “Well, if he delivered to the four horsemen, he probably wasn’t around to see the day we had. The only way to deliver to Death is, well.” He drew the bottle across his throat in a slicing motion.

“That can’t really be how they do it,” Aziraphale scoffed. “What do they do, write him instructions saying, ‘Please die?’”

Crowley chuckled. “If Heaven was running it, they just might. Hell wouldn’t have said please.” He held out the bottle to Aziraphale, who took a generous sip before passing it back. Crowley always bought good alcohol.[1]

“That was kind of Adam, thinking to bring him back to life,” Aziraphale said. His brow furrowed. “How much did he change, do you think? Did he undo everything that happened?”

“I hope so,” Crowley murmured. He looked away from Aziraphale and out across the street, suddenly quiet. Aziraphale watched him. What was he so worried about? Had he lost something? Or some—

Oh.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale began quietly, “are you thinking that your friend might come back if Adam fixes everything?”

“My what?” Crowley stared at him. Somewhere in the woods, an owl hooted.

“Your friend.” Aziraphale swallowed, trying to rid himself of the sick feeling that rose up at the memory of Crowley’s expression, drunk and broken, when he said he’d lost— “Your best friend, remember, you said you lost them. When I came to talk with you.”

An idea rose up in his mind, and he found it hard to breathe through the loneliness squeezing his chest. He’d never considered Crowley having any other friends, before. In all the millenia they’d spent on Earth, it had always been just the two of them, and he’d thought it always would be.

He cleared his throat. “You could go find them, if they’re alive again. Go to Alpha Centauri, or, or something.” He tried to smile encouragingly at Crowley, but he faltered partway through and pressed his lips together to stop the lump that rose in his throat. He wanted Crowley here, with him, but he’d never seen the demon more upset than he’d been in that bar, not caring if the world ended and took him with it. After all that they’d been through, Aziraphale wanted nothing more than to be with Crowley and let himself enjoy it, for the first time in his life. But if Crowley’s friend meant that much to him, what right did Aziraphale have to stand in his way?

On the other end of the bench, Crowley just stared at him. “I can’t believe you.” Behind his dark glasses, his golden eyes flickered back and forth, searching Aziraphale’s face. Aziraphale watched him back, heart sinking with every second that passed. What was it about Crowley and this friend that he was missing? Who could have meant this much to Crowley, when Crowley didn’t even think Aziraphale important enough to introduce to them?

Finally, Crowley spoke. “Are you really that daft?”

“Am I—am I daft?” Aziraphale sputtered. “What sort of a question is that? I just asked about your friend. I’m trying to—oh, dash it all!” He exclaimed. The tears that had been threatening to take over made one final great charge and spilled into his eyes, and Aziraphale jumped up off the bench and stormed away, blinking furiously. A tree loomed up in front of him and he stomped unsteadily around it to lean against the rough bark on the far side, where Crowley couldn’t see him. It was an old tree, probably had watched over this corner of Tadfield for two hundred years, and Aziraphale gripped the deep grooves of its bark with his fingers, willing his tears to stop. He couldn’t let Crowley see how much this hurt.

From behind him, there came a thump, a hissed curse, and the sound of one lanky demon with half a bottle of wine in him scrambling to stand. Aziraphale clutched the tree and tried to calm his breathing down.

“Angel, wait!”

Aziraphale turned toward the sound. He couldn’t help it. Only Crowley ever called him that, and though his heart felt like it was being pulled from his chest, the name still set a spark of warmth alight in him. Staring down at the tree roots pushing up through the grass, he brushed at his eyes furiously.

There was a thunk as Crowley tossed down the bottle they’d been sharing, and then Aziraphale felt a hand on his arm. He let himself be pulled back around the tree, and slowly looked up to meet Crowley’s eyes—the glasses were nowhere to be seen. To his surprise, Crowley looked distraught. In the light of the bus stop’s streetlamp, every line of tension in his face stood out.

Crowley grabbed both of Aziraphale’s hands and squeezed them, and Aziraphale felt his stomach flutter.

“You’re my best friend, you idiot.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you!” Crowley exclaimed, rolling his eyes as though this was supposed to be obvious.

“I’m the best friend you thought you lost?” Aziraphale heard himself say. The words didn’t sound quite real.

“Of course you are!” Crowley burst out. “You got discorporated! Demons were coming for me, and I went to the bookshop to check on you but it was burning and you weren’t there, and I thought they’d killed you. What was I supposed to think?”

Aziraphale floundered. “But you, you, you don’t even like me!”

A shadow passed over Crowley’s face. “Angel, you said that, not me,” he said softly. “You always say things like that.”

Aziraphale’s words in the bandstand echoed angrily in his head, and he blinked hard.

Crowley smiled sadly. “I told you how I felt, right from the beginning. I asked you to run away with me to Alpha Centauri, for Satan’s sake.”

“I know, and I should have taken you up on it.” Aziraphale shook his head. He was Crowley’s best friend. He couldn’t decide whether to laugh from joy or curse himself for being too afraid to see it before. “I should have been brave enough to go with you.” He looked back at Crowley, and the soft expression on the demon’s face nearly made him cry a second time. “You told me Heaven wouldn’t help us, you tried to make me understand, and I abandoned you. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather run away with someone else?”

“Angel,” Crowley whispered, lacing their fingers together. “It could only ever be you. It’s always been you.”

He brought his free hand up slowly to rest against Aziraphale’s cheek, and with his thumb brushed away the stubborn tears that lingered there. His touch was light as a feather, and Aziraphale’s skin tingled.

A breeze passed through the trees in Lower Tadfield. Much as it had when Adam stopped Armageddon in its tracks, Aziraphale felt the world shift.

He looked at the demon in front of him, at his best friend, at the person who had been by his side through every adventure for the past six thousand years. Who had saved him time and time again, from trouble with humans and trouble with Heaven and his own stupidity. Who had come back for him, stuck by him even when Aziraphale was too blinded by rules, too afraid to do the same. Who he had loved for so long, first unknowingly, and then unwillingly, always believing that he couldn’t have what he wanted without betraying his side, the Good side, God’s side.

It was as Crowley had said. Good and Evil didn’t mean anything, those sides weren’t important. There was only their side, Aziraphale and Crowley against the universe.

A flicker of worry passed across Crowley’s face, so small that only a friend—no, a partner—of six thousand years would have noticed. Aziraphale noticed.

He reached out to mirror Crowley’s movement, cupping the demon’s cheek and pulling them closer until their faces were nearly touching. At this distance, Crowley’s four inches of extra height seemed like much more, and Aziraphale had to look up to meet his eyes.

“I love you, Crowley,” he said fiercely. “I’ve loved you for so many years, and I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to realize that you’re more important to me than any plan, ineffable or otherwise.”

Crowley’s smile started slow and grew like the sun bursting over the mountains at dawn. His golden eyes shone. Aziraphale had never seen a more beautiful sight.

“Shall we go on an adventure, then, angel?” he asked.

“I believe you still owe me a lunch at the Ritz, my dear.”

“Of course, how could I forget? We can have as many lunches at the Ritz as you like,” Crowley declared. “But first, I think, a good night’s sleep.” He stepped away but kept hold of Aziraphale’s hand, sauntering backwards towards the bus stop as only Crowley could do, pulling Aziraphale along with him.

“The bus is almost here,” he announced, pausing to pick up their discarded bottle. He launched it through the air towards the rubbish bin nearby. It went wide, and then changed course midair and landed neatly in the bin with a clang.

“You don’t know that—” Aziraphale stopped as the distinct rumble and wheeze of public transit reached his ears. He rolled his eyes, and Crowley raised an eyebrow at him. _What don’t I know, angel?_ A moment later, the bus appeared at the crest of the hill.

"It says Oxford on the front!” Aziraphale pointed out.

“Yeah, but he’ll drive to London anyway,” Crowley said. “He just won’t know why.”

Aziraphale laughed. “I’d like to go back to the bookshop,” he said, smiling at the thought of his hot cocoa and a nice re-read of one of his favorite classics. It had been a very long day, and his emotions were beginning to get the better of him. His cozy chair and a book sounded like just the thing—

Crowley’s look of pity stopped him cold. “Aziraphale,” he said quietly, “the bookshop burned, remember?”

Aziraphale felt suddenly weak. “Oh, oh yes, I suppose I knew that. Gone.” He thought of the shelves of first editions that he’d purchased all over the world, the collection of prophecy books that he’d finally completed when he found Agnes Nutter’s copy, the volumes authors had given him, the messy notes on their inside covers the only remembrance he had left of friends long since gone.

He stumbled, and Crowley caught him. With a squeal and hiss of brakes, the bus pulled up and opened its doors.

“You can stay at my place tonight,” Crowley said. “I’d really like that,” he added, more hesitantly. Visions of flames danced before Aziraphale’s eyes.

“Oy, you gettin’ on or not?” the bus driver shouted.

Crowley waved at him to wait and stepped toward the bus, a dark figure silhouetted against the fluorescent light. He held out a hand to Aziraphale.

“Come on, angel. We’ll figure out the rest tomorrow. Come home with me.”

No more bookshop. No more being a soldier of Heaven. No more ineffable plan. But really, those were all secondary to the one constant in Aziraphale’s existence, and that was Crowley. His demon. His love.

Aziraphale took Crowley’s hand, and together they stepped onto the bus. The doors slid clumsily shut, Crowley did something to the driver so he didn’t ask for their money, and they collapsed onto the hard plastic seat, headed for home.

Or rather, headed for Crowley’s flat and a good night’s sleep, warm and safe in each other’s arms. Home, Aziraphale thought as the bus rumbled away from Lower Tadfield, was wherever he and Crowley were together.

**Author's Note:**

> 1  
> Well, he didn’t buy it. It just sort of appeared in his hand when he wanted it, and Aziraphale preferred to imagine that it came from a cabinet in Crowley’s flat where he kept all the bottles he’d purchased. More likely, somewhere around the world a bottle disappeared from a shelf in a fancy wine cellar or liquor cabinet. It had probably been more of a status symbol than actually intended for good use. At least this way, someone was sure to appreciate it properly.[ return to text]


End file.
